News - Piledriver to surpass the 4GHz barrier with Resonant Clock Mesh

[HEXUS]

New tech enables a 10 per cent boost in either power efficiency or clock speed.

Read more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

"We eagerly await AMD's first 4GHz+ processor."

The FX4170 runs at 4.2GHZ and is on pre-order from many retailers already.

[crossy]

The technology, developed by Cyclos Semiconductor, enables AMD to either, reduce chip-wide power consumption by 10 per cent, or increase clock-speed by 10 per cent with no impact on TDP

Probably unfashionable of me, but I really quite like the idea of this being applied to a lowish TDP processor to cut it even further. E.g. an eight-core processor with a TDP of just over 80W.

[Biscuit]

Probably unfashionable of me, but I really quite like the idea of this being applied to a lowish TDP processor to cut it even further. E.g. an eight-core processor with a TDP of just over 80W.

Same, then i would overclock the out of it!

[Scribe]

"We eagerly await AMD's first 4GHz+ processor."

The FX4170 runs at 4.2GHZ and is on pre-order from many retailers already.

I should have said quad core and above!

[crossy]

I should have said quad core and above!

The 4170 that Cat quotes is quad core - correction to your correction being "above quad core" perhaps?

Same, then i would overclock the out of it!

Well there is that.

Actually (he says showing his very low level of knowledge) I've always kind of wondered why, if TDP is such a big deal, that Intel and AMD don't follow the example set by some of IBM's Power processors and allow the system to power-down unused cores. Better still, have some mechanism that power's them down after POST until they're actually needed. After all, unless you're doing encoding work or games surely the majority of PC tasks (web browsing, media consumption, email, office, etc) don't actually need 8 cores running past 4GHz? Power saving for a normal desktop user could be staggering, while not compromising for those times that you do need all those eight cores.

It's the skinflint in me coming out - don't like the idea of spending cash powering processor cores that aren't actually doing anything useful apart from heating the room.

[kalniel]

Actually (he says showing his very low level of knowledge) I've always kind of wondered why, if TDP is such a big deal, that Intel and AMD don't follow the example set by some of IBM's Power processors and allow the system to power-down unused cores. Better still, have some mechanism that power's them down after POST until they're actually needed. After all, unless you're doing encoding work or games surely the majority of PC tasks (web browsing, media consumption, email, office, etc) don't actually need 8 cores running past 4GHz? Power saving for a normal desktop user could be staggering, while not compromising for those times that you do need all those eight cores.

It's the skinflint in me coming out - don't like the idea of spending cash powering processor cores that aren't actually doing anything useful apart from heating the room.

They already do. Ever since AMDs 'cool n quiet' both Intel and AMD have employed ever more significant and effective power gating on idle - even idle states during load operations.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/21

[abaxas]

Probably unfashionable of me, but I really quite like the idea of this being applied to a lowish TDP processor to cut it even further. E.g. an eight-core processor with a TDP of just over 80W.

Lots of 70% 'speed' cores instead of a few 100% ones.

Exactly how we should be going.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I should have said quad core and above!

You write for Hexus??

[scaryjim]

... I've always kind of wondered why ... Intel and AMD don't ... allow the system to power-down unused cores. ...

... don't actually need 8 cores running past 4GHz? ...

Both Intel and AMD have introduced power gating, which effectively turns off unused cores. Intel did this quite a while ago, iirc - AMD introduced it in Bulldozer and will (I hope!) be enhancing it in Piledriver. Both companies have had technology for a long time that varies the clock speeds (either of the whole chip or individual cores) depending on load. So they are continuously working on improving the efficiency with those kinds of measures.

Don't forget that AMD have worked technology into their new GPUs where they can turn off the whole card except one small chip that tells the computer there is still a card there. Perhaps we might even see the point where Intel/AMD can start incorporating different classes of core into one chip, so you have one or two bobcat / Atom cores for day to day stuff, and the more powerful x86 cores only kick into action when a heavier workload comes along? That could potentially bring large power-savings in day-to-day usage.

[kalniel]

You write for Hexus??

Of course he does. You're just used to seeing the big heXus avatar and 'lowe' username

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Of course he does. You're just used to seeing the big heXus avatar and 'lowe' username

Two Hexus accounts??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The FX4000 series has 4 integer units and 2 floating point units and a Phenom II X4 has 4 integer units and 4 floating point units.

Technically speaking if you look at CPUs in the past the floating point unit was a co-processor and the CPU per-se was primarily an integer unit,so an FX4000 series CPU is a true quad core by older definitions of the name.

However,many desktop workloads are floating point heavy nowadays,and even though the floating point units are more powerful individually when compared to a Phenom II X4,with the Phenom II X4 throughput in non 256 bit operations is usually higher.

Hence,from a desktop marketing point of view,it would have made more sense to sell the FX4000 as a dual core with 4 threads. In this sense it would have made it look better.

[Scribe]

You write for Hexus??

=S You've caught me having a very stupid moment.

[Scribe]

Two Hexus accounts??

It's just one account, only I've had my forum account longer than I've been writing for HEXUS, it's a pain in the butt logging in!

[Scribe]

The 4170 that Cat quotes isActually (he says showing his very low level of knowledge) I've always kind of wondered why, if TDP is such a big deal, that Intel and AMD don't follow the example set by some of IBM's Power processors and allow the system to power-down unused cores. Better still, have some mechanism that power's them down after POST until they're actually needed. After all, unless you're doing encoding work or games surely the majority of PC tasks (web browsing, media consumption, email, office, etc) don't actually need 8 cores running past 4GHz? Power saving for a normal desktop user could be staggering, while not compromising for those times that you do need all those eight cores.

It's the skinflint in me coming out - don't like the idea of spending cash powering processor cores that aren't actually doing anything useful apart from heating the room.

Interestingly, Intel does power down cores completely, AMD transistor tech doesn't (or at least didn't) allow them to turn a core off completely so its TurboCORE lowers the clock instead.